MORGAN’S POINT

The first book in the Jim Ward series, out now

This novel introduced the world to Jim Ward, the troubled protagonist of this series that integrates suspense, crime stories, and even romance into the decidedly Texas settings of Houston and Galveston Bay—including the small town that gives the book it’s title. Ward, haunted by a childhood tragedy involving the deaths of two young girls, tries to exorcise those demons. He pursues a law career to seek justice for others. He marries Cooper Faircloth, the only daughter of a newspaper and oil tycoon. And yet his past encroaches on his present, opening up existential questions of predestination vs. free will, as well as unveiling a mystery that threatens to transform a Texas town already on the brink of the irreversible changes the 1960s will bring.

ANAHUAC

The sequel to Morgan’s Point, out in Fall 2017

The second book in the Jim Ward series brings readers back to the same territory expertly detailed in Morgan’s Point, fast forwarding to 1972. A spinster living on an isolated ranch is murdered, and when authorities from the nearby town of Anahuac investigate, a literally-blood-drenched preacher turned radio evangelist becomes the main suspect. Ward, on his first day of private practice, takes on the defense of the Rev. Randall Clay, and is swept into a world of greed, religious fervor, mysterious players with perplexing motivations, and with Darling’s prior novel, a changing national culture meeting head on with the literal backwaters and backwoods of Galveston Bay.